The WTF? Thread

[Hot Pepsi]

The Black Death?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-massachusetts


Man dies after eating too much liquorice

That’s how I want to go.

[S. aureus]

I don't eat liquorice too often, but I tend to over-indulge when I do as it tastes too good not to just shove it all straight into me.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

We could start a new OTF game where you earn a point by being the first to point out another instance of Guy posting in complete disregard of the topic of his post having already been covered. First player to 20 points wins.

[Patrick Thistle]

[Diable Rouge]

https://twitter.com/btharris93/status/1312000077020434432

[elguapo4]

That's it DR you win the thread.

[Gangster Octopus]

It's got to be a joke, hasn't it.

[Mr Cogito]

The Black Death?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-massachusetts


Man dies after eating too much liquorice

Snaccident?

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Snaccident?

At least we know the root cause.

[Diable Rouge]

I'll never understand Middle America:

https://twitter.com/herosnvrdie69/status/1313940566644846592

[WOM]

Click through for a closer look, but Girl #4 is a freakishly accurate robot clone of her father.

[ursus arctos]

Much of Middle America is equally perplexed by these nut jobs

[Hot Pepsi]

This also really isn’t all that unusual, historically. The symbolism used in standard weddings - white dress, dad “giving away” the bride - is all a relic of the widespread belief that women were a resource to be bought and sold and that “pure” women were the most valuable, for a variety of economic and possibly evolutionary reasons.

America is not alone in having a lot of people who just don’t feel like they can get with the program of modernity, let alone postmodernity, so they’re just going to double down on the Old Ways.

[ursus arctos]

Father-daughter "balls" and rings are both weird and ahistorical, though

Not to mention the fact that "pre-marital sex" was very common in all of the communities these people claim they are emulating.

[San Bernardhinault]

Yeah. The super-creepy father-daughter photos - particularly as the daughters look completely terrified having been dragged out into a wasteland - seem pretty WTF to me.

[Tactical Genius]

Yeah. The super-creepy father-daughter photos - particularly as the daughters look completely terrified having been dragged out into a wasteland - seem pretty WTF to me.

They are probably concernd how their father will ascertain their, "purity".

[Hot Pepsi]

Father-daughter "balls" and rings are both weird and ahistorical, though

Not to mention the fact that "pre-marital sex" was very common in all of the communities these people claim they are emulating.

Right. They’re grafting a few different patriarchal traditions together and it just so happens that there are hotel “ballrooms” and DJs that need the bookings. But it’s the same basic old shitty ideas about the role or women and the power of the clergy that transcends time and place. It even transcends different religious traditions.

American religion has always been weird. Those people came to where they are because weirdness was not tolerated where they were before, either Europe or, in the case of the Mormons, the eastern US.

The people of the 18th century that wanted religious tolerance or diversity would see this as a huge success. We have hundreds of denominations and no one establishment church.

But on the ground, it’s not usually that great. For a whole lot of people, there is no real religious “freedom.” They either believe, or at least pretend to believe, what their parents want them to, or they lose the only family and community they know.

I don’t think heavy-handed, French-style “secularism” is a good solution. It doesn’t seem to be fairly applied and it’s often violently resisted. I think the only approach is to acknowledge the important things that religion is providing to people - community, ritual, rites of passage, etc. - and try to provide those in a more non-coercive, open hearted sort of way.

[Balderdasha]

I wonder why religion seems to have dwindled so much more in the UK than in the USA. According to the ONS, about 39% of the UK population now identifies as either atheist or agnostic. And while 53.6% claim to be Christian, only about 11% of people actively attend church on a weekly basis.

[Balderdasha]

In the USA, the most equivalent figure I could find is that 23% of the population attend either a church or a synagogue weekly.

[Balderdasha]

The "irreligious" percentage in the USA (atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular") is about 21%.

[Hot Pepsi]

Because we have so many different kinds of churches, more people can find one they like or start a new one.

We don’t have anything like the CofE, that seems to be in the business of using its vast wealth and power to make religion as boring as possible.

But what we do have is a lot of churches that treat religion like a business and Sunday services like infomercials. I’m not entirely sure why that hasn’t really ever taken hold in the UK, but part of it is because the aforementioned establishment wouldn’t allow those churches on their turf.

And because of history, Europeans are far more likely to see the church as a malign influence on society. Americans are starting to move that way a bit, but churches here are better at constantly reinventing themselves than they are in Europe.

I suspect that the true rate of irreligious/atheists in the US is a lot higher. But it is still just not socially accepted in so many places or in many families. Eventually it will reach a tipping point just as it did in Europe.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Creepiness aside (if that's possible) what's with the backdrops?

[ursus arctos]

Traditional landscapes in places where this is a thing.

[ursus arctos]

The people of the 18th century that wanted religious tolerance or diversity would see this as a huge success. We have hundreds of denominations and no one establishment church.

This is true,.but we also have a significant political class who believe that the dictates of white Evangelical Protestantism should trump all other rights and obligations and that government power should be used to enforce that state of affairs.

Which true dissenters would have had all kinds of problematic with.

[Diable Rouge]

This is true,.but we also have a significant political class who believe that the dictates of white Evangelical Protestantism should trump all other rights and obligations and that government power should be used to enforce that state of affairs.

Which true dissenters would have had all kinds of problematic with.

Especially given that many of the states were founded by Presbyterians and Quakers.